Kickin' it with Canon

how much caffeine does the american pediatric association approve of for breast-feeding women? well, they say to try to keep it under 300 mg - about 3 cups per day. oddly, they did not consider the health and safety of the infant being cared for by a completely dysfunctional, under-caffeinated mother of a newborn. still, i keep to the guidelines and my third cup is USUALLY decaf and if there is a (gasp!) fourth cup, it is definitely decaf and only necessary because its predecessor was also decaf. sigh. its the little things that get you through, you know?

which reminds me - the little things at the center of (our) attention right now are nova and canon. canon is already (!) five weeks in this world. payton and i are still grossly under-slept and i fear the day he goes back to work for a full five days for many weeks in a row! still, canon treats us pretty well and has stretched his every-two-hour nighttime feeds out to about every three hours (sometimes) - we fervently pray it does not stop there. the upside to the newborn-second-child's sleep pattern is that it makes nova's sleep pattern - for which we still celebrate a full night's worth of uninterrupted sleep - look pretty successful if she only wakes up once or twice. and hey, we're already awake - or were recently or will be shortly - so no dramas, right?

anyway, canon's first month (and OUR first month, for that matter - as a family of four) was pretty fun...

nova played in the backyard, wore her (well, my) snorkeling goggles (including in the car and into the restaurant to pick up some carry out dinner) and painted a canvas for canon's room (it's a picture of a platypus). canon mostly slept.

sleeping.

soon not to be sleeping. nova just can't resist touching that soft baby hair!

oh! he's awake!

sibs

a portrait of the artist as a young man

sleeping.

taking nova to kindergym

august is birthday party month here, so we went to zara harrington's fourth birthday - a princess party.

canon sleeping (wisely) at the princess party

and we went to jack's third birthday - jack is nova's best friend at school...

...they're talking about starting a band together. they're having trouble deciding if they'll go electric or acoustic.

mmm, cake. at 1030 am. no nap.

nova's beautiful locks got trimmed - those split ends just had to go! i have no idea how to layer a haircut - but the set up looks professional, eh? - but we tried... and neither, it turns out, can i cut in a straight line (her bangs have a very sassy un-evenness to them). but emilee - just because vivian has those wild, forgiving curls....

snuggling with dad.

teaching canon the important things in life - how to give high five!

sibs... i see lots of these types of pics over the years...

bright eyes

butterfly

canon's first bath (in the bathroom sink).

most little girls like to dress up like fairies or princesses... ours likes to dress up like a bag lady. future birthday party theme?

big sister, little brother

rough-housing with daddy

swinging in the backyard

family dinner! this was a rare moment - and it lasted about that long - as dinner usually consists of one of us holding canon, the other inhaling dinner and helping nova with hers, then a swap. the last one to eat dinner has to eat alone, but hey, at least the food is cold.

happy 3rd birthday, nova! 9th august, 2010

well, we had our first experience planning, executing and surviving nova's first real birthday party. i don't know if its the month of august or kid birthdays in general, but it turns out that, much like daycare, when planning a birthday party, one would do better to get on a waiting list at least six months in advance. that way, those busy two to five year olds have a chance to pencil the date in to their busy social/birthday party schedules. nonetheless, in classic gardner fashion, we gave everyone two days notice. (actually, we made the mistake of mentioning the party and potential guests to nova BEFORE calling or confirming any attendees, so we were doing some major finger crossing that everyone could make it.) nova was so excited that she could hardly sleep the night before...

i try to stick to lauren's advice (which i don't think she does): invite the same number of kids as the age of the of the birthday girl (or boy) - but that proves more difficult as 2nd and 3rd siblings come along... anyway, we were able to keep it to four kid guests and jessica - a kid at heart, but one that gets to drink a beer or glass of wine with the "parents". so, we had steph and kurt glaser and their kids, eddy and casey, and glenn and nikki harrington and their daughters, zara and laila.

nova being so in to the blue guitar that grandma and grandpa had given her, we decorated her cake with one. i tease jessica that because she is my friend, i am a better mother. jessica not only has more experience managing/herding kids than i do, but nova also had gourmet icing (peanut butter, cream cheese and nutella) (nothing against crisco icing, mom and lauren!) because of her (and brian).

licking the cake batter bowl...

rock on, sister! ...the inspiration for the cake...

nova opens presents like she eats food - slow and distractable. after you convince her to open one and help her tear off the paper, all of which can take five to ten minutes, she wants to play with that toy. there's no tracking to the next present, no focusing on the task at hand; instead she just focuses on the one gift that took her half an hour to open in the first place (which i guess is good, because so much effort went in to opening the present). as my mom pointed out, this is nice for the gift-giver, as nova gives due (and then some) attention to each gift. this is a dangerous game, however, when you have a room full of bait (i.e. presents) and hungry wolves circling (i.e. other children). but nova, in her sweetness, is happy to share the present opening experience... so five-year-old eddy and his savvy three-year-old sister actually ended up opening most of nova's gifts - it was the only way we were going to get through everything and still have cake and ice cream before her fourth birthday!!

finally! cake! nova, zara, laila and casey...

eddy, nova and zara...

now, nova got some awesome puzzles, games and books for her birthday, but the gift that stole the show was the "princess box set", complete with two sets of pink, plastic high-heel barbie-style slip ons and a tiara. despite multiple wipe-outs on our wood floors, donna reed persisted and was eventually found cutting wooden fruit at her kitchen, presumably for leave it to beaver and the cleaver family....

nova in pleasantville..

a close up of those sweet pumps...

it was an awesome day and we all ate too much cake - a perfect three-year-old birthday party.

happy birthday, nova. we sure are glad you were born!

introducing...

canon heysen gardner

born 1230 am, 28 july, 2010 in adelaide, south australia!

5 lbs 14 oz

baby boy gardner came in to the world after a blazing fast hour and a half labor, only thirty minutes of which we were at the hospital... in australia, if all goes well and you've had a natural birth, you can go home 4 hrs post-delivery. so we did. we left the house at 1145 pm, had a baby by 1230 am and were back home in bed by 6 am! we keep calling it the drive by delivery. nova never knew we were gone (though we were thankful that bill and chris were at the house just in case...) nova went to sleep as an only child and woke up as a big sister. and she LOVES her baby brother!

nova, it turns out, is a bit of a mother hen. she reminds me to walk behind her (you get behind me!) when going to change canon's diaper; she (very sweetly) hushes him when he's crying and reminds him to "use your words"; she is a champion helper with diaper changes and will fetch wipes, diapers and hand sanitizer (and uses it!) as well as toss dirty nappies in the bin and carry dirty clothes to the laundry; she also tries to hold canon's feet during diaper changes - which mostly inhibits our movements (quick, get the nappy on before he pees!) and puts her in the line of fire; and canon's field of vision is usually filled with nova's round, lovely face as she talks to him from distance of two millimeters and gently (sort of) wrangles/hugs his head - i think he's going to know her face better than mine...we are extremely lucky to have such a sweet, nurturing, generous daughter. still, with our rookie year behind us, i never took in to account the challenge of having to manage one child with one hand while holding off the first child with the other hand

payton gets four weeks of paternity leave, so we are enjoying being a stay-at-home family of four for the time being...

'course, that said, we will soon be taking a family trip to melbourne, victoria. it turns out that canon does not qualify for australian citizenship (and therefore, will not have dual citizenship) because payton and i are not permanent residents/immigrating to australia; although canon does get a very cool birth certificate with kangaroos, emus, kookaburras and other australian fauna on it. so! canon needs an american passport (to go to the US for a december visit), but is there an american consulate in adelaide (a capital city, mind you)?! no!! does the american consulate in melbourne have reasonable hours?! no!! do they require canon to be there in person?! yes!! does anybody care....?! well, no. and now we have a great excuse to visit melbourne. i'm sure that adventure can be a whole other post... anyway, here are some pics of us at home:

our first morning at home...

proud grandpa gardner

proud daddy and big sis

can't get enough of baby bro (can't stop touching his face either!)

a few days old... not too badly beaten up and looking better all the time

i don't think this will ever happen again...

just a couple pics of nova - who loves her umbrella and poncho... and is wearing a dress her aunt lolo wore as a girl...